Mood Hairs

Growing up, my parents had a friend who changed her hair according to her mood. One day she'd be a brunette, next a blonde, she might have even had blue hair at one point. The only thing I remember about her is going to meet her at the mall one day. We wandered and circled for almost an hour when my little brother finally asked my parents what color her hair was that day and we realized we had no idea! We had probably passed her and didn't even know it, because we were looking for a blonde, but was she blonde that day?

I love my hair, but the curl pattern and my lack of skill with a blow dryer and other hair tools pretty much sticks me to a total of 2 different hair styles. Both of which I've worn since I was 12. I love pixie cuts, but forget about it (seriously, forget it,  I tried in once in a fit of frustration and a 100plus degree heat wave). And punked out spikes? AWESOME! But, yeah, no hair tool talent.

Mr. Curly prefers me to grow it out, which I've been trying for over a year now.   It gets SO HOT.  Last week in a fit of frustration I went to the bathroom and hacked some bangs in just to keep it off my face! Thankfully, they look alright, and blend nicely when I want them to.

Tonight I went to Walmart for chicken, and came home with this:

Last September I highlighted my hair blonde. In the spring, I did chunky violet lowlights and deep red highlights. Those highlights have faded and grown out.
So I impulsively tried Pepper Potts red hair.

Here's what I got:

As expected, it didn't turn out as bright red. But the dark somewhat faded brown my hair has become in recent years is now nicely shiny with a hint of red. (It is still damp from washing). I'm sure once it dries it will be lighter and more red and I know it will curl more!

Plus, I already have a plan for when this begins to grow out - deep burgundy. A hint of purple again will be nice. And my roots won't be as noticeable then.

I think I might be turning into that friend my parents used to have.....

Bee Slow, Bee Quiet

Mr. Curly is raising bees.  Yeah. Yeah, you read that right.  He has a few videos on youtube (or at least is working on getting them up there) calling himself the ignorant bee keeper.

Here's how it all went down:

We have some friends who noticed a lot of bee activity outside their house. And then a buzzing in the walls. And then stains leaking through the old lathe & plaster walls (they live in an old farm house a little bit out of town).

They had to abandon a room due to the bees.

So Mr. Curly did a lot of studying and researching, built a hive with his dad, and went and pulled bees out of the walls and floors and ceiling. They were EVERYWHERE.

But now the house is bee free, and we have lots of honey and beeswax to use.

Somehow, there was no queen (this swarm had split once before and we think something traumatic happened to any new queen they would've had), so we bought one.  Who even knew you could do that?!

The kids are FASCINATED by the bees.  They repeat the rules to me often - be quiet, be slow - and then go sneak up to the hive and the observation window to see what they can see.

Honestly, they give me the hee-bee-jee-bees (hahahahahaha).
But, bees, yeah, we raise them now.

Whaddya Do?

Last week, Mr. Curly and I celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary on July 4th.
To celebrate, Mr. Curly planned a trip.  I knew about the trip, but had no idea where we'd be going, or what we'd be doing, so I couldn't really say anything about it except that my dad was going to stay with the Curly Kids while we were gone!

But we're back!  And now I can answer ALL the questions (and then some) that we had beforehand!

The short answer is this:
Tuesday we spent the night in Omaha, walked the river park, ate at Old Chicago in the Old Market downtown area, walked through their open air mall, tried on expensive leather hats and fur coats.

Fountains at the River Park

Wednesday we drove down to Brownville, NE where we spent the night at Pierce Cottage (the same place we stayed 8 years ago for our 2nd anniversary when we did a motorcycle trip through Nebraska). 
Here's what you need to know about Brownville.  It is super cute.  It is only 148 people.  It is a tourist trap.  Nothing is open Mon-Thurs.  We lucked out that things would be open on Thursday because they had July 4th events starting at 7am and not ending until 9:30 that night! 

Our view from the cab of Mr. Curly's 1950 Ford F-1 as we drove through the one-way roads of Indian Cave State Park

Part of the cave

Anyway, since it was Wednesday and everything was closed, we went out to Indian State park where we battled an army of ticks and an ant named Bobby (planning a children's book out of that tale!!)


Thursday we were part of the Brownville July 4th parade, then went down to St. Joe, MO, toured the Patee House and Jesse James house where he was shot.




















And I had this thought there - we are weird.  Did you know that?  People are totally weird.  We paid $4/person (really not bad) to go into a 4 room house (that would fit inside most living rooms these days) to see a bullet hole in the wall and hear about the death of a famous bank robbing outlaw.  How WEIRD is that?!  Why would we pay to stand in the room where someone died?!?!
The answer?  I have no idea.  But it was actually really cool.  (insert self conscious smile here)


1886 firetruck

Joaquin Murietta - the Original Zorro!

After we left St. Joe, we headed back up to Brownville, where we perused the local shops, ate some ice cream.....
















 and then the BIG surprise of the trip - a river boat dinner cruise and a night at the River Resort Inn!!

River Boat Resort Inn

The Missouri River may be muddy, and we were the only ones dressed up, but it was an absolutely  lovely river ride.
Once we got back to the shore, we listened to some live music, took a walk, enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL weather!

View from the Dinner Boat

At 9:00, we were snacky, but we're still in Brownville, that has nothing open. They even unplugged the pop machines! (We're guessing, none of the ones we found in town were on) So we hopped in the truck to go over to Rock Port MO (just 7 miles away).  Brownville is RIGHT on the river, so we were driving across the bridge when the River Boat firework show began!!
We flipped around, ZOOMED back to the riverboat, ran down the gangplank, around the decks back to our room door, where we set down and watched a nice little firework show (and cringed away from the TWELVE HUGE spiders building webs above our heads).

View of fireworks from our spot on the lower deck.  Nice, but started a bit too early.

Then we got in the truck, now that it was truly dark, and headed to Rock Port!  We got to watch fireworks as we drove, and once we got our pop and snacks, followed the flares to downtown Rock Port where we sat on the back of the truck (still all dressed up!) and watched their show too!
Heading back to Brownville, we got to watch the fireworks people were shooting off at the Brownville bar.

View of the River Boat Resort Inn from the shore at night.

We spent the night on the riverboat, woke up Friday morning just in time for a wonderful breakfast watching the river sparkle in the sunlight and laughing at a gentleman from the kitchen who was VERY particular about where people set.

Friday we headed back to Omaha, where we toured the zoo without our kids and watched the Dinosaur Alive imax movie.  That night we stayed in the Council Bluffs Settle Inn (Mr. Curly booked us the Mountain Retreat room - it was SO nice, a Jacuzzi tub right in the room.... bliss) and ate at the Red Lobster (that had the worst service ever).

Saturday morning we slept in, ate a late breakfast, and came home to extremely joyful kids and a (probably gratefully relieved!) granddad.

We had a marvelous trip.  We enjoyed hot food and quiet times, walks without worry, drives without car seats, late nights and later mornings.
As our first vacation without our kids since they were born, it was quite successful.  I can't wait for the next one!

You're killing me, Smalls!

When I was in high school, I had this dream of skipping college, moving to Chicago and working for the Tribune.
Lucky for me, my parents insisted on college, where in the first semester I discovered I hated writing journalism, loved writing history, and met an amazing boy from Chicago with the coolest truck I'd ever seen (and best taste in pizza, but that's another story).

However, my high school dreams are coming true.  Sure, we're not in Chicago, and the Daily Sentinal is no Tribune.  And I'm not writing, I'm delivering...

Ok, ok, so this is nothing like my high school dream.  But I'm still working for a newspaper.  Kind of.  I'm a contract worker.  But I get the paper everyday and it is my job to ensure that all subscribers on Route 34 get that paper before 5:30 that evening!

I had a few hiccups in the delivery process the first two days, but I look forward to this afternoon's delivery route.  I even think the Curly Kids and Mr. Curly will come with me, as the weather is supposed to be fine, and Mr. Curly is getting cabin fever already!

I do need to work on my newspaper throw though.  Maybe I should watch Sandlot a few times (which is where the post title comes from).

For a great movie about newspaper salesmen - see Newsies.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!

So, last Sunday was awesome.

I got my picture taken with this lion's baby at MGM.

I saw white tigers at Mirage.

And in the Forum (Caesar's Palace shops) I met Dick Butkus.  Yeah, you read it.  Dick Butkus.  We chatted, he signed a picture for Mr. Curly, took a bunch of pics with me and my friend.

Not quite ruby red slippers....

So I went to Vegas with my best friend.  Not being gamblers, we did everything else we could possibly fit in in 3 days.

One of the most fantastic things I got to do was shop.  I shopped at Tiffany & Co (didn't try on any jewelry), Michael Kors (touched EVERYTHING) and Christian Louboutin.  Where I tried on shoes.

Yes, yes I did try on a $1200 pair of Christian Louboutin shoes.  And they were FANTASTIC.  They were a size too big, (I have a very common shoe size), but oh my goodness, did they make my feet and legs look SO GOOD!

(The dress is one my friend bought me so I'd have something new to wear in Vegas.  She's spectacular!)

Though they're disapproving, keep them doggies moving....

Mr. Curly and I have an extreme love/hate relationship with our 1966 Mercury Parklane. We bought the car as a sort of 3rd anniversary gift for ourselves with the thought that we would have it running in a year.

Ha.


The poor Parklane (dubbed Lois by my dad) had fried wiring (which we knew about) and sat through at least 2 floods before we bought it. We scooped out so much red Oklahoma dirt, and still, to this day, if you slam the door hard enough more dirt will fall out from some place we missed.

Before we got the engine - a 410 Marauder - rebuilt, our uncle had to pull it to high ground to keep it from another flood.


BUT, it drove itself to SD when we moved. And then, well...


All cars have personalities, at least, all old cars. We're pretty sure this car has demons as well. As Mr. Curly says, she goes through starters like skittles. We have to replace the starter about every 3 months. Mr. Curly can replace the starter (which thankfully has an unlimited replacement lifetime warranty) in about an hour.


Last Friday, when trying to get the rest of our things away from SD, the starter went out on the car. The starter we had replaced in December and had only started the car with once before.

We really should've expected it.


So Tuesday we went back, pulled the starter, got a replacement (thankfully they had one in stock) and Mr. Curly put the new one in, with some help.



We were slightly afraid to shut it off to put gas in it, but we had to check the oil as well, so Mr. Curly told the car this "Listen, we're trying to get you out of here. In about a month, you'll be up to your engine in mud and slush and melted snow and we both know you don't want that. So you're going to start again so we can take you south, park you on a nice hill, and keep you dry."


She started with no hesitation. And is now parked in our driveway in Iowa.


Oh, and we also learned on this trip that our trailer has some serious wiring issues. We have no taillights, but brake lights. The left blinker also makes the right reverse light blink, and when you turn on the right blinker, the left blinker blinks every 3rd time the right blinker does. So people may have no idea what direction we're going, but they know we're going!


Post title from "Rawhide!"

Today, Tomorrow

Today is my last day of work!
Today is the day we are to use no dishes so I can finish packing my kitchen.
We'll see how it goes.

Tomorrow is our moving day. Our load up the truck, drive it down, unload the truck and then collapse in front of the TV day. I've been warned by multiple people multiple times not to move anything, not to lift anything. I understand the concern, but it is not my personality to sit by and watch people work when so much needs to be done!

Now, I will be watching the Curly Kids, so that will keep me from getting a lot of what I want to help with done, but there is no way I won't be carrying a box or two myself.

After tomorrow, there may be a brief hiatus from the blog as I meet my new doctor, set up my new house and get everything going. And I mean very brief, I'm as addicted to writing my blog as I am to reading the list of blogs I follow.

So, if you see no more posts from me, check out the list on the right. There is some great reading there, or check out all frizzy things marked "sites I love." There are great blogs there too!

Or you can read the Darth & Droids comics.

Or write some hint fiction.

OR, and I just found this new one, challenge your writing skills at creativecopychallenge.com. They list a creative writing assignment each day.

Or, I guess you could always just play sudoku.

This is egg salad, it's loaded with cholesterol....

So, we had a sort of Tim Gunn "make it work" moment, but with food, on Tuesday night.

We came home Monday and Tuesday we all ate peanut butter and jelly for lunch. I didn't go to the grocery store because we had milk and Wednesday night we had plans to eat out with friends. So I figured we could do family grocery shopping Wednesday night.

And then I realized as I was fixing supper Tuesday night "We have no more bread."

Panic - what will we eat for lunch on Wednesday? There is ramen, but I hate ramen, and it's not a complete meal for Mr. Curly and the Curly Kids! I know they won't eat oatmeal. What should we do!?

Pita bread to the rescue!

Well, kind of.

See, we bought pita bread over the weekend, in case the bread Mr. Curly baked for communion at church didn't work out right. But it did, and was wonderful, so we had a package of pita bread.

Ok, so salad sandwiches it is. I was going to make tuna salad. Turn to the cupboard, well, no, no tuna, so no tuna salad. Canned chicken! We always have canned chicken in the pantry. Open the pantry. Yeah, you could've heard crickets. All that is in there is the ramen, various pastas and some rice krispies. Sad.

Ok, eggs. We have lots of eggs. Egg salad it is.

So I boil eggs. They come out PERFECTLY! Mr. Curly helps me chop and we go to the fridge. We have no celery (it was left in Iowa). We have no carrots (ate them all in Iowa). Well, pickles, that's a crunch. Only, we're all out of baby dill pickles.

Fine, that's ok. We have a jar of hamburger sliced dill pickles. It won't be perfect, but it will work.

We chop up pickles. Grab the miracle whip. Whip it up.

Wow, what a sad salad. Eggs, pickles, miracle whip. Hm.

So I experimented with some spices. A little celery salt.... a little more. Add some crushed mint. Mint, why not? It will balance out the pickle on your breath, right?

For some reason, I didn't even consider adding the lettuce we had sitting in the bottom of our fridge. Why lettuce doesn't come to mind when I think salad I have no idea.

But you know what? As sad as that salad looked, use it to fill a pita pocket and it actually wasn't that bad. For a last minute lunch with a million missing ingredients, I'd say it was down right good.

I should have my own cooking show.

Post title from Mystery Men.

It's snowing!

Somewhere we have a picture of our first April up here in the north. In the picture, there is 6 inches of FRESHLY FALLING SNOW piled on our Ranger.


I cried that day.


I cried long and hard about the weather, about missing my family, about being stuck in apartment when we really wanted to buy a house. About my little 7 month old daughter who should be pulling up new shoots of grass, not bundled up watching the snow out of the patio window. It was not a good day.


In the almost 3 years since we've moved here, the crying has stopped, but it is still hard to see snow in April.


This year we have been lucky. We had a dry dusting of snow, not even enough to cover the grass a couple of weeks ago. Dec. 3 marks our first real snow.


I woke up, got ready for work, set down to eat and went "Oh, it's snowing." Mr. Curly went to start the car for me and came back reporting fast falling snow almost 1/2 inch deep already.


I know first hand the dangers of driving in ice and snow. Here are pictures from 2 years ago, when ice caused a 5 car collision that resulted in a totaled truck, a "new" Explorer and an extra ultrasound to make sure Curly Boy was still safe inside me.

And yet, still, Friday morning, driving 40 miles an hour down our little county highway, with the snow plow coming up behind me (of course I left just 2 minutes too early), I greatly enjoyed the drive.

The soft snow, the tires plowing through almost untouched snow (a few people had driven before me), the Christmas carols on the radio, the warm heater, and the good knowledge that my 4x4 HIGH was on and if I ended up in a ditch, well, hey, the snow plow was behind me!

If I had had the Curly Kids with me it would've been a completely different story. But with just me and Curly Baby (little enough to be protected still), it was rather relaxing.


Snow in December, I can handle that.
Snow in April, that's another story.

Post title from "The Wizard of Oz"

Still they go and shuffle, shuffle off to Buffalo

The second weekend of communting went MUCH better.

We had food AND cookware. We remembered to turn the gas water heater from pilot to on. We took a TV and DVD player. Now, this is not really essential, but on Saturday nights when the kids are in bed, Mr. Curly is at the church going over his sermon, and I have no library card, well USA and my collection of movies are my best friends those nights!

Saturday morning I took the kids to the nearest mall, only 25 minutes away!!! This is a vast improvment over the 1 hour 15 minutes I usually have to drive. And this mall is a real mall. That whole area of town is like heaven! The shops I love, the restaurants I love! All within an easy drive of our new home.

Saturday night, before the kids's bedtime, we went for a walk around the block. We live on a LONG block due to the high school and middle school being right by the church. Curly Boy insisted on walking the entire thing himself, so it took us about an hour. But an hours walk, never crossing the street, enjoying the beautifully still warm weather? Completely marvelous.

Sunday we were invited to a hay ride and hot dog roast. Curly Girl LOVED cooking hot dogs over the fire (with Mr. Curly's help of course), but refused to eat them!

All in all, a fabulous weekend. We wish we could just live there full time right now!

On a scary note - the door of our gas oven (how awesome is that? I learned to cook on a gas oven & stove and am thrilled to have one again), gets super super burnable hot when cooking. Any ideas on why that might be?

Post title from 42nd Street

But, oh, those summer nights....

This "game" was actually invented in late August, but I'm really bad at getting pictures off my camera and onto the computer.

It was still warm out, but too cool to really go swimming. The Curly Kids really love their pool though, so we came up with this game.
Using a plastic football shaped popcorn bowl and a package of water balloons I got for $1, we decided to practice our catching and throwing skills.

The object of the game was different for each child. Curly Girl was to catch the water balloons using the fish net, and then dump them into the popcorn bowl.

Curly Boy was to then take the water balloons and throw them as far as he could back into the water.

It ended up with Curly Boy just splashing around because Curly Girl didn't want him to throw away her "wet ba-yons" and he eventually climbed into the pool. Mr. Curly and I were doing yardwork, so we were watching, but Curly Boy is sneaky. Curly Girl broke several water balloons all over herself by shaking them too vigorously.

I was more wet than the kids, trying to fill water balloons, even with the handy hose ends that had been included, but we had fun.

Post title from the movie Grease: "Summer Nights"

Turn your eyes upon Jesus....

Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in His wonderful face

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace.

We sang that song last Sunday, our last Sunday at ERC.

So many people have been so encouraging about this move Mr. Curly and I are beginning Oct. 1 (we'll drive down to Iowa that night and spend the weekend, since Mr. Curly preaches Oct. 3).

I know we have had many many people praying for us since May, when the decision was made to search out a new church. We prayed then to God to lead us to a new calling, and if not to a new church, than a renewed and re-fired calling to ERC. As things progressed over the summer, it became apparent that God was calling us to leave (and thus close) ERC, to take on His mission somewhere else.

Thank you to all those who have prayed with us, and who continue to pray with us, as Mr. Curly follows this new venture.

For those of you who keep reminding us to listen to God's voice - we are. We have been since January 2008 when we took a leap of faith and moved 10 hours from any family and friends to begin a church in a town we knew nothing about and had no contacts.

God has blessed us infinitely here, much was learned and we wouldn't trade this time for anything, but it is time to leave. God's voice is clearer on that fact than on anything else.

Not everybody will agree with our decision, but in the end, it isn't even MY decision. It is Mr. Curly's. God has placed a special appointment on him - to teach and preach to the followers of Christ, to find the lost and give them the good news of God's love. My place in that calling is to be supportive of my husband, in whatever way that means, and I support him fully in this.

Yes, we will miss the friends we have made here. Yes, it does pain our hearts to close the doors of our church plant, one we had so much hope for, so many dreams for. It feels like a failure in every sense of the word.

But you do not ignore God's calling. If He didn't want us in Iowa, there are a multitude of things that would not have worked out. This is for the best, and we have to trust that. And our friends and family have to trust us in this decision.

So, with our eyes fully on Jesus, let the new adventure begin....

For more "Taming of the Frizz" see here.